Colony 10
by emeraldcompass
Summary: Backed against the wall, one man leads the fight against the purest of evils in the Verse: Reavers.
1. Chapter 1

Colony 10: an unassuming, yet-unnamed town on an unassuming rock known as Hephaestus. It would seem odd that, given its reputation (or lack thereof), that Colony 10 would become the stuff of legend, a beacon of hope to the entire Verse. And it all began with one man's apparent refusal to die.

Cord Elwood, a man of forty-two years, sat at his dinner table, alone, as he did every night. Candles lit the modest shack which he called home; in Colony 10, power was a luxury reserved for those who owned the mines and Alliance brass who came to check in on the place. Of course, none of them had come in quite some time. That was something Cord welcomed earnestly.

Twenty-five years serving in the Alliance military, and here he was, the unsung hero. Cord was happy once, with a wife and child, but the last colony he inhabited – whose name comes and goes in his memory – was attacked by Reavers, leaving Cord the sole survivor. That alone should have been enough for Cord to send him packing to the Core Planets, but he knew that his place was out here, in the sticks. There certainly wasn't anything left for him under the boot-heel of the Alliance.

Cord ate his barely edible dinner in complete silence, the flicker of the candles throwing shadows all about the shack. Outside, in the night, the other inhabitants of Colony 10 were milling about, all trying to get home before true darkness fell, when outside would become pitch-black and visibility would become a thing of the past. Another thing Cord liked about the sticks: they always kept you guessing.

Once finished with his dinner, Cord went to the washroom to brush his teeth. He looked in the mirror, and marveled at how old he was starting to look. He traced the lines on his face, the gray starting to come in in his dusty blonde hair, the shine leaving his once-bright green eyes. His body was starting to slow down, after all its use during the war. His military figure was starting to go here and there. Cord sighed as he turned away from the mirror and extinguished the candle, heading to bed.

Cord didn't have dreams; those were yet another luxury he could not afford. Cord suffered with endless nightmares, replays of the night his family was brutally slaughtered. Every night he had these same nightmares; every night, he awoke at the same time: 2:13 A.M. The exact time that his child drew her last breath. Cord sat up in his bed, and swung his feet over the side. He got up and walked to his bedside table, picking up a photograph of his late family. His wife with her ginger hair and blue eyes, his daughter with the button nose and everlasting smile. Cord tried to save them; but his wife locked him in the basement, behind a steel door. It was the last thing he saw before the Reavers left. He would never forget her face, the way that she told him "I love you", as though it were the most important thing she'd ever said in her life. He would never forget the screams, his daughter's cries. Then, everything stopped. Alliance personnel called in after the attack found him in the basement and quickly evacuated him for questioning. One year later, he was out in the Verse again.

Cord went back to bed, extinguishing what candles were left around the house.


	2. Chapter 2

**DISCLAIMER: I forgot this in the last chapter, but this story is set in a universe created by the talented Joss Whedon, not myself, so please don't sue me (I don't have anything anyway, unless you want my spiffy new shoes.). The characters, Colony 10, and Planet Hephaestus, however, are creations of my own, and any resemblance of them to any character, living or dead, fictional or real, is purely coincidental. Again, don't sue me, I'm very protective of my spiffy new shoes.**

Cord rolled over in bed, the sunlight filtering in through thin sheets. He rose from the bed and began to prepare for his day: working in the factories until the Boss said "stop". The Alliance didn't care about planets such as Hephaestus, didn't care to enforce labor laws, and so Cord usually found himself working eighteen to twenty-hour shifts. He was only home last night due to his lie about a meeting with a Companion for which he'd been saving up. In reality, Cord needed a day of rest, lest the job kill him.

With his leisure day behind him, Cord put on his uniform and stepped outside, into the blinding rays of the sun. He could already tell that today would be a hot one, another in a long line thanks to the heat wave, which may or may not have been caused by global warming. Factories like the ones Cord worked at existed in force all over the surface of Hephaestus, each keeping their own hours of operation; Cord even heard tell of one factory that went so far as to just have their workers live on site, working days at a time. Cord grit his teeth at the thought.

Before reporting at the factory, Cord visited Mrs. Plum, his elderly neighbor. It wasn't rare to see many people over the age of fifty this side of the Verse, and she was the only one with whom Cord could reminisce about the military. Both had served in the Unification War – on opposite sides.

"Unification Day approaches, Elwood. Getting your knickers all in a bunch this year?" she asked with a snide smile. Her old British accent added a sharpness to the words that Cord could not help but love.

"No, ma'am, in fact I hadn't even been aware." Cord replied, "Must be the damn fumes getting to me. Harder to breathe in those damn factories than it was in the trenches, you wouldn't believe it."

A glint of fire in Mrs. Plum's eyes told Cord that he had stepped too far. "War's over, Plum. Don't know how many times I gotta tell you that, but you don't have to be such a _mugou_ about it." The wind blew even more dust into his face as he turned away from Mrs. Plum. She shouted something in Chinese as he walked away, and both parties smiled. All in good fun.

Cord walked to the factory, as most other men in Colony 10 did every day. He assumed his station, his monotonous job on the assembly line, and mentally tuned out, to allow his body to do all the work.

It had only been two and a half hours before the Boss came out, white as a sheet, and told everyone to go home. There was an understandable air of confusion about the place; the Boss would never call an early work day, hell, the shortest day Cord had ever had was ten hours.

"Why is it that we're going so early, Boss?" a man near Cord, named Osiris, asked as others began to pack up.

"It has been reported that..." the Boss began, his pudgy face dripping with sweat, "That Reavers have been spotted heading for Hephaestus."

A hush fell over the factory floor. People looked to one another, exchanging glances of shock, panic, and terror. The Boss kept talking, explaining the situation, but Cord did not listen. Cord could not listen. He could only see his wife's face, pulled away from him after a final "I love you". He could only hear his daughter's screams as the Reavers... No, Cord would not stand here and be lectured about the Reavers. He would not run home out of fear, he would not hide. The last time he hid, his family and his home were wiped out.

Cord did not go straight home for the factory. Sirens wailed all over the colony, but Cord did not care about them.

He walked up to Mrs. Plum's door and began banging upon it.

"Open up, you _fengkuang de nuwu_! It's Cord Elwood!" he yelled at the screen door.

A distant voice from inside replied, "Are you armed?"

"No, I'm not armed! I-" Cord began. As though from thin air, Mrs. Plum appeared at the door, a repeater in one hand and a mug of tea in the other.

"Well, why the hell not, Alliance boy?" she replied with a devilish smile. Cord smirked as he walked into the house. There was much to be done.


	3. Chapter 3

"Reckon they'll be going for the larger population centers first," Mrs. Plum said as she darted from place to place in her small home, gathering arms and ammunition, "Don't suppose we have much to offer them here."

"They say how many ships?" Cord asked, clenching his teeth as he looked out the window behind him. The sky shone as radiant a blue as ever, but black specks, barely visible to him, shattered the illusion of a beautiful day.

"Dozens, from what Guinevere told me." Mrs. Plum replied, laying out the arms on a small dining table. Cord unclenched his fist and looked to her with wide eyes.

"_Dozens_, you said?" he asked, his mind racing. Flashes of his wife, echoes of his daughter, a burning house, a desolated home...

"Yes, they'll spread all over this planet like a plague." Mrs. Plum paused for a second, lost in thought. "Why is it you came here, Alliance boy?"

Cord's attention was brought back to the old woman and her house. Pictures, trophies from the Unification War, hung everywhere on the walls. The old woman with grit and determination in her face, her eyes shining brighter than ever in the face of combat. "Lord knows you Browncoats can't hold a position for anything," Cord said with a grim smile, as Mrs. Plum shot him a dirty look, "I came to help you. Have you any transportation, anything to get you off-world?"

Mrs. Plum put down the repeater she was cleaning and looked sternly at her former enemy. "What makes you think I'd want to do that?" she asked with grim determination in her eyes, same as the photographs.

"Because fighting Reavers is suicide, Plum. Do you know what they'll do to you?!" Cord replied sharply. Mrs. Plum picked up the repeater and resumed her cleaning.

"Can't be any worse than what you blokes did to us back in those trenches." she answered quietly. Cord stood, shocked. "Oh, don't look at me like that, Elwood, like you don't know. The bombings, the gas, anything you could get your grubby little Alliance hands on." Mrs. Plum looked hard into Cord's eyes. "Reavers do not scare me, Elwood, because I have seen true evil. You're not moving me anywhere, Alliance _gou_." Cord stood before her, speechless. "Now, if you're going to run away, I suggest you do it now, Elwood. Leave the _real_ soldiers to do the fighting."

Cord did not move from his spot. Before he could open his mouth to retort to the woman's speech, there was a knock at the door. He pivoted on his foot and opened the door, and on the other side was a young girl, no more than twenty years old. She looked puzzled as she observed Cord. "Is Martha Plum here?" she asked, in an accent not unlike Mrs. Plum's.

"I'm back here, child." Mrs. Plum replied from behind Cord, who stepped out of the way to let the girl in. As she stepped through, she marveled at the arsenal on the table.

"Well, looks like you're ready. Osiris and Evan should be here any moment, ma'am." the girl said as she moved to assist in the cleaning of the firearms. Cord just looked on, confused.

"You see, Cord Elwood, not everyone is just going to back down when something large and scary comes their way. Not everyone will just bend over and let their home be taken from them. When you run away to your Alliance, be sure to tell them that; should I write it down for you?" Mrs. Plum said smugly, looking up at Cord as she continued cleaning.

Cord's mind was elsewhere, as once again images of his family flooded his mind. He closed his eyes to focus those images, and concentrate on the fire they caused in his heart. Welling up inside him was the excitement in knowing that, finally, vengeance would be at hand. While not the same Reavers that took his family, Elwood could take them all the same.

An eye for an eye. An army of Reavers for his family.

Cord picked up a pistol and began disassembling it. "You can tell them, Plum, once I've saved your ass from the Reavers." he said, not taking his eyes off the weapon.

"We'll see who saves whom, Elwood." Mrs. Plum replied, the girl looking on confused. The sound of ships overhead, those running scared with good reason, eliminated any chance for further conversation. Soon, they would be on their own. Soon, the Reavers would be upon them. It was almost time.


	4. Chapter 4

As predicted, the gentlemen Osiris and Evan arrived shortly after the roar of engines in the skies died down. Osiris, Cord recognized from the factory floor; tall, slender, dark-skinned. Evan, however, was new to Cord; he was young, his face untouched by the wrinkles that come with experience in life. His hair hung loose in front of his eyes, forcing him to flip it out every so often. Feeling self-conscious, Cord found himself touching his own short, graying hair periodically. A scowl would always cross his face as he did so, a scowl that none but Mrs. Plum caught, if only for a second.

The young woman was identified as Guinevere, Mrs. Plum's mole within the small militia network that kept the law in Colony Ten. It was Guinevere who had told the old woman how many ships were coming in, a number Cord still found disturbing. As he was about to voice his concerns, Evan, with wide eyes, beat him to it.

"You said on the radio earlier, Gwen, that there were dozens of ships." he said, his voice shaking, as the rest continued cleaning the guns and collecting ammunition. Cord wondered where it all came from; but he dismissed it, Plum had probably stored up after the war, prepared for another one. "How could that be possible?" Evan finished.

"What do you mean?" Gwen replied, not taking her eyes off of the shotgun she was reassembling.

"Reavers don't come in _dozens_. At most, maybe three or four ships, but never dozens. What's drawing hundreds of them here? What do they want?" Evan asked, his voice cracking.

"It's pretty simple, what they want," Mrs. Plum replied grimly, looking up from her cup of tea, "And their numbers don't matter. Way Reavers fly, most of them will crash and burn long before landing. They'll go after the larger populations, and if we're lucky, stay the hell away from podunk settlements like this one."

"And if we're not so lucky?" Cord asked across the table, leaning forward in the folding chair he'd been provided.

"Well," Mrs. Plum replied with a sip of tea, "I think you know the answer to that, Elwood." Cord lowered his gaze from the woman. His mind wandered again, to images of his family. He began to sweat, and wiped it off his brow. His hands were caked in the stuff, and he excused himself to go outside and get some fresh air.

Outside, the desert ground had been kicked up by all the activity from the ships; the wind had died down, but still maintained a presence in the air with a breeze that did nothing to cool the heat wave. The colony was quiet, much more quiet than Cord had ever seen it. The people had fled the Reavers, no doubt either off-world or captured by now. The black specks in the sky had gone, replaced with black streaks of smoke. Mrs. Plum was right; several of the Reaver ships had already gone down.

Cord noticed something about the smoke trails: some of them came from nearby wreckage. Just outside the colony. He must not have heard them for the noise of the fleeing ships. The Reavers were already here. Although distant, Cord could hear their screams. How anyone could survive that, was a mystery to him. Maybe the Reavers were so insane that such a thing meant nothing to them. That pain could not stop them, nor their hunger or their rage. Cord's eyes opened wide, and he darted back into the house, where the last preparations were being made. The windows were being boarded up, and the firearms had been properly loaded. Gwen looked at Cord quizzically.

"What is it?!" Gwen said as Cord heaved the dry air.

"They're here. Reavers are already here." Evan said, looking out the window. Their screams now perforated the walls of the house. They echoed everywhere. Evan's face turned a ghostly white. Osiris and Mrs. Plum took arms. Gwen helped Cord up and handed him a weapon.

Cord grit his teeth as he prepared himself for the battle to come. Images of his family flashed through his mind once again, their screams now melding with the echoes of the Reavers'. Cord had lost one home to those beasts, he would not lose another.

Turning around and aiming out a slot in the window, Cord fired the first shot, dropping a grotesque, mangled man to the desert ground. The fight was on.


	5. Chapter 5

Although injured, the Reavers came en masse, their howls now almost as deafening as the sound of ship engines. The five fired shot after shot at the horde, but for each Reaver killed there were two that would take the bullets like they were nothing. Evan, his hands shaking vigorously, managed to hit one woman in center mass, directly above the heart; still, she continued running towards the house. Evan swore under his breath as he chambered another shot, but Gwen finished the woman off for him. The two exchanged a glance before returning to the fight.

The sweat on Cord's brow flowed freely, obscuring his vision. Stepping back from the firing line, he tore a piece of his shirt off and wrapped it around his forehead, doing little to stop the proliferation of perspiration. Returning to the line, he looked over at Mrs. Plum, who was holding out to him a thick, red bandana – the same certain Browncoats would wear during the war. Cord accepted the gesture, and tied the bandana around his head, which helped a lot more than the thin material ripped from his shirt. He nodded to the woman and returned to firing at the oncoming Reavers.

After about ten minutes, the last of the Reavers had been taken down. Heavy sighs filled the room, as gunsmoke filtered out through the windows.

"So, that's it, then? Those were Reavers? Not so tough, are they?" Evan said nervously, trying to get a rise out of the room. Nobody laughed. Gwen patted him on the shoulder and said something inaudible, prompting him to nod and return to cleaning his weapon. Mrs. Plum looked to Cord.

"That's not it, is it?" she asked, prompting him to look up at her from underneath the headband, "Damn, I was beginning to have some fun. Haven't gotten the chance to mow buggers down like that since-"

Before she could finish that sentence, Osiris hushed everyone in the room. Something was causing the house to shake, the ground itself to tremor. The sound of engine, albeit far away, was quickly coming in. Cord was the first to realize what it was – and the first to guess where it was heading.

"Get that door open!" Cord shouted, gathering all the ammunition he could carry. Evan and Osiris complied, as the women went to gathering the weapons. After the barricades had been pried from the door, Cord rushed over and kicked it open, sending it spinning off of its flimsy hinges.

"Hey!" Mrs. Plum shouted as the five filed out of the house. Cord turned and looked into the sky, against the sun; shielding his eyes, he could make out the profile of a Reaver ship, heading directly for the colony, and not slowing down one bit. He turned behind him, looking for an escape route. In the distance, he saw his unlikely savior.

"Everybody run to the factory! Move it, move it!" he said as he took off sprinting towards his workplace, the last place he really wanted to go. For her age, Mrs. Plum kept up fairly well; Evan and Gwen ran side-by-side, not letting the other out of their sight. Osiris brought up the rear, periodically looking back at the ship rapidly approaching them. From the distance, a boom was heard, and Osiris caught a glimpse of something shiny – and not in the good way – heading in his direction. He had seconds to contemplate his last thoughts before the Reaver harpoon impaled and subsequently crushed his head, dropping him to the dusty desert floor and spraying brain matter all over Gwen and Evan. The two looked back in horror, and nearly faltered in their step. Cord looked back and saw what happened. He ran back and shoved the two on, urging them not to look back. "There's nothing to be done for him, let's go!"

Now reduced to four, the group made it to the factory just as the sound of the crashing ship grated against their ears. The sun beating down on them, they tried in vain to open the doors, which had been deadlocked. Gwen and Evan banged on the large metal door, while Mrs. Plum looked through her sights at the wreckage of the ship.

"Elwood..." she said, handing Cord the rifle. Cord looked through the scope and saw the Reavers once again, some burning up in the small inferno of the ship, others tearing bits of metal out of their bodies, and many more running towards the factory. Steeling himself, Cord turned around and shot out a window in the factory, urging everyone to climb through. He turned back around and provided cover fire as his three companions loaded themselves and the small arsenal through the window. When everyone else was through, Cord threw the rifle in to Mrs. Plum before going in himself, scratching himself on a piece of glass. He swore as he touched the ground, and wrapped the small wound with yet another piece of his shirt, which was running out of fabric. Catching him unawares was a worker's shirt, thrown by Mrs. Plum with a laugh. Cord put it on, getting the hint. The screams of the Reavers came closer and closer, until they too were pounding at the door.

"Are we going to be safe in here?" Gwen asked, with Evan slightly cowering behind her. Mrs. Plum opened her mouth to reply, but Cord cut in first.

"Those things won't stop. They'll beat that door until their arms break and then they'll just hit it with their bloody stumps. Only way to stop a Reaver is a bullet to the head. No door's stopping them." he said grimly. The sound of breaking glass from far off alerted the foursome to Reavers flooding the building from somewhere else. The banging on the door did not let up. "Come on, we have to get upstairs." Cord ordered.


End file.
